When should and shouldn't instanceof be used?

Question

I have gone through various articles, but I still do not know why instanceof should not be used. Kindly let me know your thoughts.

Answer 1

Using instanceof when overriding Object's equals method is necessary, seeing as two objects cannot be equal if they are of different types. I've rarely come accross another situation where instanceof is required - perhaps if downcasting is required but a ClassCastException may be thrown.